The present invention relates to an apparatus and the associated testing procedure for determining the visual perception and related skills of a person. The apparatus and procedure of the present invention is usually used for the testing or pre-school or elementary school children or others to determine the possible causes of any reading deficiency that they may have.
An objective of the present invention is to develop an apparatus and associated test which could be used to predict the incidence of reading deficiency in children and which could also be used to diagnose specific aspects of the deficiency early enough to provide effective remediation. Reading deficiency may result from a variety of problems including visual or auditory dyslexia, environmental deprivation, emotional disturbances, aphasia, or autism. There presently exist reading and visual perception tests that are used for children such as the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test or the Developmental Test of Visual Perception. However, these tests are generally static tests that evaluate the reading of text or letters.
The existing tests do not provide sufficient criteria for the assessment of the visual perception capabilities of a subject. Visual perception has been found to be a crucial factor especially in the early development of reading skills. Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide a test designed to measure a number of those aspects of the subject's visual perception and related capabilities which have been linked to such reading deficiency as, for example, dyslexia.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an operational method for the early diagnosis of reading deficiencies so as to provide a basis for effective remediation.
In accordance with this invention a dynamic-type of test is used involving the generation of moving line patterns. The measurable characteristics fall into seven categories including basic pattern reproduction, spatial orientation, line quality, directionality, mental processing time, short-term visual memory, and visual sequencing memory.